Talking to turtles 

Forging a new relationship with the natural world

Featured in

  • Published 20231107
  • ISBN: 978-1-922212-89-4
  • Extent: 208pp
  • Paperback, ePub, PDF, Kindle compatible

We are talking to ourselves. We are not talking to the river, we are not listening to the river. We have broken the great conversation. By breaking that conversation, we have shattered the universe.

– Thomas Berry

Already a subscriber? Sign in here

If you are an educator or student wishing to access content for study purposes please contact us at griffithreview@griffith.edu.au

Share article

About the author

Susan Baur

Susan Baur is a retired psychologist who has published several books of clinical tales, including The Dinosaur Man and Confiding. More recently, she has...

More from this edition

Help wanted

Poetry The opening said no training required; the slaughterer’s tasks are two: stun and slaughter.  With a third parenthetical:  Remove the organs  and the waste  as needed. Heifers all  have name tags here:...

Mother of pearls

FictionBut we are more animal now than we’ve ever been. We read the water that leaps into our pools; we filter all kingdoms of life through our gills. We understand that the tendrils connecting one life form to another run much longer and deeper than you might expect. And we can entertain the notion that our strange tasks were like the fateful beats of a butterfly’s wings, and maybe the witch was a rare genius, able to perceive how the purloined dog, the pawned bird or the swapped cats would, in the mysterious rippling of the universe, lead to our deepest desires coming to pass. 

Into the void

Non-fictionI think with a little fear, as I often do, of the many other (and much larger) creatures whose natural territory this is, and scan the surrounding water for any dark, fast-moving shadows. But soon I relax and settle into the rhythm of my freestyle stroke. Breathe. Pull. Pull. Pull. Breathe. Pull. Pull. Pull. Breathe.

Stay up to date with the latest, news, articles and special offers from Griffith Review.